Why WordPress Websites Need Maintenance

If you have a WordPress website it needs regular maintenance. Why? Think of a WordPress website like a house:

Someone who loves their home looks after it. You know… keeps it clean, fixes things in it that break, throws out old food so it doesn’t stink… etc. In the same way WordPress, being built using dynamic PHP script has many moving parts. It’s code needs security updates, performance updates and it’s database could do with a clean every now and then. This keeps your website running fast, staying secure and doing what it was built for.

When a WordPress website hasn’t been updated for a while it’s kind of like a derelict house. You’re inviting the unwanted attention of malicious scripts, bots and hackers looking to exploit the out dated code on the site. That’s not the type of attention you want.

But My WordPress Website Was Professionally Built So its All Good!

Even if you got your website professionally built with premium plugins and themes it is still vulnerable if you don’t update it. WordPress web developers cannot tell the future. They don’t know what developments in technology and code infrastructure could make your site vulnerable.

Even with security measures in place, no one can guarantee your site wont get hacked. A hacked, slow or broken site is likely to cost you visitors, conversions and affect your bottom line.

The internet is a fast changing landscape. The good guys are coming up with code improvements. The bad guys are constantly looking for weaknesses in the code to exploit. The best way to stay ahead of the game is to keep your site up to date.

How Does WordPress Maintenance Help My Website?

Good question.

When one of the 75 million WordPress websites out there get hacked, or break or start loading slow developers are usually very quick to find a solution. Why? Because their livelihoods depend on it. They fix the code, release an update, and its up to the website owners to receive this update and replace the old code. This process has to happen manually because every site has a different set of plugins, themes and customisations.

As a result when you keep your site updated you are helping to ensure:

Your website stays on line

Your website loads quickly

Your website functions quickly

Your website is secure from malware and hacking

Help is On The Way!

At Halo Digital we provide care plans which keep your site up to date each month. After updating, we check and test your site to ensure the update has worked correctly. We take regular backup snapshots of your website and can revert to a recent backup should a plugin update fail. We also include monthly security scans. If we detect an issue in your website code, we raise a support ticket and fix the problem.

Can’t I Just Update it Myself?

While you can update and maintain your WordPress website yourself, it is not recommended. Running an update from the WordPress admin may trigger a failure in the code which could go undetected. When the error is detected it may be weeks later and you will need to revert to an old backup (if you are running backups). An old backup means you may loose all recent changes such as posts, enquiries, sales orders etc.

I’ll Just Pay for a Professional When it Breaks…

For many things in life, prevention is better than cure. In the case of WordPress Websites, maintenance is cheaper than repairing it. You see, with our Care plans we regularly back up your website. If we update your site and detect a problem we immediately fix it or revert to a backup should the problem be in the plugin code. We can hold off the update until the plugin author updates the code. To fix a broken site that is not backed up is time consuming and will cost more than the maintenance of a regular care plans.

We Deal with WordPress Every Day

As a WordPress web design agency, we deal with WordPress everyday. It’s what we do. We can focus on looking after your site so you can focus on what you do best. It makes good business sense and can save you hours of unproductive time trying to figure it all out. Just like trying to win a court case without a lawyer, don’t try to maintain your business website if you are not a web professional.

Our Care plans start from $100 / month. To find out exactly what is included as part of our monthly maintenance visit our Care plans page